Primal Ice: Paranormal Fantasy (Ice Dragons Book 3)

by Ann Gimpel

  Had all of the forty-seven dragons who’d settled beneath the Antarctic ice sheet with her and Kon turned their backs on honor? On what it meant to be dragon shifters?

  Wordlessly, she looked at Konstantin. The same agony chopping a trail through her was reflected on his face. “It can’t be all of them,” she blurted.

  “It’s probably not.” Her twin’s expression had clouded over with ire—and disappointment.

  “You’re talking in riddles,” Ylon sputtered.

  “Indeed. Tell us what you think you know,” Gustaf said.

  Kon’s shoulders slumped. Katya’s heart ached for him. From the looks of things, what he was about to admit would be a serious splotch on dragon shifters from now until the end of all worlds.

  “When Mu was dying”—he spread his hands in front of him, showing half-formed talons, which meant his dragon was very near the surface—“some dragons refused to believe she was doomed. It was mostly the very old ones, the ones who had called Mu home for thousands of years. Y Ddraigh Goch came to me and asked if I would create a flight of my own to ensure every dragon left Mu. I asked him how he thought I could accomplish such a thing, and he assured me he would help.”

  Kon flexed his fingers—that had mostly turned into talons—and kept talking. “I still do not know exactly what our god tried to accomplish, but a handful of the dragons were angry. They blamed me—and Y Ddraigh Goch—for their plight and swore retribution. To my face.”

  He narrowed his eyes as if he were dredging up a memory, and murmured, “They said to me, we live long, our kind. Never turn your back too far, Konstantin. A day of reckoning will find you, no matter how vigilant you are.”

  A sharp hiss ran through the dragon shifters. Erin and Johan would have no way of knowing, but for a dragon to lift its claws against another dragon was cause for banishment. It was almost the worst thing you could do to a dragon. Y Ddraigh Goch would be better served to kill a beast outright than to ban them from the dragons’ world.

  “I did my best to smooth the waters.” Smoke puffed from Konstantin’s mouth. “Told them they did not have to accompany me, but they’d obviously talked among themselves. The only response they gave me was ‘We live long…’”

  “You did not know,” Johan said right next to Katya’s ear.

  He hadn’t asked a question, which spared her responding. Good thing since she didn’t trust herself to talk. Angry at Y Ddraigh Goch for placing her twin in such an untenable position, she was amazed the dragons who’d come to Earth with them had stuck it out as long as they had.

  Her bondmate must have known about the other dragons’ deep discontent. And said nothing, keeping Kon’s troubles private. Of course, Katya had her own set of problems with her dragon leaving for such a long time, but she’d have walked through burning coals if it would have helped her twin.

  Konstantin was talking again. “We waited until the last possible moment to leave Mu. Y Ddraigh Goch did a fair job splitting the recalcitrant dragons among the flights that fled Mu’s destruction. Twelve ended up with me.”

  Only twelve. Not every dragon in their flight.

  Katya couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Did everyone but me know?”

  “No, Sister. Part of our god’s requirement was silence. It was wise of him. Had he openly identified the rebels, the rest of dragonkind would have turned their backs on them. It would only have made the problem worse.

  “I gathered the twelve dragons together. We met in secret after we escaped Mu. I told them they were free to leave Earth, that I wouldn’t hold them against their will—or report their egress to Y Ddraigh Goch. They mourned the loss of their home, and I hoped the presence of other familiar dragons would soothe them.

  “At first, I thought they were settling in, but what they were really doing was sowing the seeds of discontent. Dragons are quick to anger, but it takes us time to figure out how we can get back at whoever wronged us. They worked one angle after the next until they’d convinced all the dragons in the flight to leave.”

  “And then they ran straight to the serpents and joined up with them.” Nikolai sounded bitter.

  A snarl emerged from Konstantin. “We do not know that. I refuse to believe every dragon who left went immediately to the dark side. So far, we’ve identified four traitors. Five if you count the one Johan and Katya saw today.”

  Titania had left the lake and was back in her formfitting hunting leathers. Long golden hair dripped where it hung about her shoulders and down her back. Katya had been so focused on Konstantin, she’d missed the faery queen’s transition.

  Oberon stood next to his queen. “Before ye say aught else”—his clear, ringing voice commanded attention—“we shall depart. Our presence offered an edge in today’s battle, but shifter wars are not our wars.”

  “How can you say that?” Katya blurted. “Everything is connected.”

  “Not to our way of thinking.” Titania tossed her shoulders back and stood tall.

  Konstantin caught Katya’s eye and shook his head. He bowed toward the faeries. “We are most humbly grateful for your assistance. As Titania noted, our magics were designed to work together to dispatch immortal creatures. I will do everything in my power to convince the land to find it within herself to continue.”

  “It is appreciated,” Oberon said. “Ye can leave Earth. We cannot. Our power is keyed to the harmonics of this world. My magic is part of the warp and weft of Earth’s loom. I never expected our reign here to last forever, but neither am I ready for it to end quite yet.”

  He blew out a weary breath. “Long ago, Bran and Gwydion advised me to place the Dreaming elsewhere, on another world, but it would have required a continuous infusion of magic to maintain. Far more than keeping it here, and so I declined their counsel. Bran is the Celts’ seer. I should have listened to him.”

  “Splitting the source of your power would have given you alternatives,” Kon murmured.

  “Precisely.” Oberon sounded tired. “But it is far too late to extricate the Dreaming from Earth’s grip. We, Titania and I, shall go to the Celtic gods’ council chambers in the ruins of Inverlochy Castle and request an audience.”

  “I hope they look favorably on whatever requests you put before them,” Konstantin said. “If you change your minds about fighting alongside us, we would welcome you back.”

  Katya gripped Johan’s hand far too tightly. She had to be hurting him, but he didn’t complain. Her twin couldn’t just let the Sidhe leave. They needed them. Absent their intervention, they wouldn’t have killed a single serpent today.

  “I cannot hold them against their will,” Kon’s voice whispered deep in her mind. He must have read the outrage and despair on her face. Or else her beast had talked with his.

  Clouds of the earth-tinged power she associated with the Sidhe rose around them. When it cleared, the faeries were gone. The low hum of worried-sounding side conversations eddied around her. Konstantin bugled to quiet everyone.

  “This is only your battle if you wish it to be. I said much the same when we stood on the sixth world. Those who wish to remain and fight with us are more than welcome, but I respect your decision if you choose to leave.”

  Katya glanced about, tightlipped. She half expected a mass exodus, but no one stirred.

  “We managed to immobilize dragons on the ninth world,” Konstantin reminded everyone. “There we combined shifter magics and the power inherent in the land. Earth has not yet answered me, which makes me hopeful she will assist us. If she were going to say no, she’d have already done so.”

  “Maybe she was waiting to see the outcome of today’s battle,” Katya’s beast muttered.

  “Does anyone have any idea how fond she is of Oberon?” a red-haired wolf shifter with hazel eyes asked. When Katya looked closer, it was the same female who’d tried to move in on Johan before they’d formalized their mating bond.

  “Not really. Why?” Kon asked.

  “Well, I might be reading this wrong, but th
e Sidhe—or Oberon, anyway—seem intent on seeing if there’s a way to correct concentrating their magic here on Earth. I was just wondering how the land would respond if the faeries pull gobs of magic out of her.”

  “Not well, but we can’t afford to worry about something we have no control over that hasn’t happened yet.” He scanned the assembled shifters. “Thank you for choosing to remain. It may not feel like it, but we won a definitive victory today. We killed enough serpents to buy ourselves some time. They are still vulnerable as mortals. It’s one more way to deal with them.

  “For now, I’m going to take another crack at convincing Earth to aid us. Once she makes a commitment, she will follow through. I’m certain of it. The rest of you are free to do as you wish for the next day or so.”

  “We will attempt to aid our lost kinsman,” Gustaf said.

  “I will return to the surface,” Katya spoke up. “I want Bennet to face me and explain the allure of serpents and dark magic.”

  “Be careful,” her twin said. “He’s not the same as when he lived with us.”

  “Neither is he all that different,” she shot back. “Unlike Loran’s youngest brother, Bennet had a mate, hatchlings. What happened to them?”

  “May I go with her?” Johan asked.

  Kon nodded. “I appreciate you asking and not just assuming. Keep her safe.”

  “Not the easiest task,” Johan mumbled.

  “Is that any way to talk about your mate?” Katya elbowed him. Together they walked back toward the doors leading into the house.

  “What? You have a problem with the truth?” He cast a sideways glance at her.

  “Of course not.” She exhaled thoughtfully. “At least we know a little bit more about what happened to the dragons who used to live here. I was relieved it was only a few. When Kon started talking, I feared the entire flight was corrupt.”

  “And you were the only one in the dark?”

  Katya nodded. “Kon could have confided in me.”

  “Why do you suppose he did not?”

  They’d reached the entrance. Katya stopped. “My brother doesn’t like to fail. I assumed he was upset because the flight left, but it ran deeper than that. He did his best to soothe the dragons who’d threatened him. It must have taken enormous willpower not to turn them in to Y Ddraigh Goch for treason. Our god would have killed them, and it would have been the end of things.”

  Johan held up a hand, palm outward. “Not the way I read the trail of events at all. Granted, I am new at this, but dragons strike me as reliant on a social structure. Surely the twelve dragons had friends among the others. If Konstantin had turned into a self-fashioned judge and jury—and dragons died because of his negative assessment of them—what do you suppose would have happened?”

  “Other dragons would have resented him.” Katya cringed as a fuller interpretation of her twin’s impossible situation sank in. “I’m beginning to understand why he kept the dilemma to himself.”

  Johan cast a longing gaze at the double stone doors. “I would love nothing better than to steal some time for ourselves, but we must return to the shore.”

  “I was considering if we should ask some other shifters to accompany us,” she said.

  “No. They are as close as telepathy, and two can be more circumspect than a crowd.”

  She could see arguments for both sides. Curious, she asked, “Where did you learn about strategy?”

  He furled his dark brows. “Video games.”

  “What are those?”

  “Simulations on a screen where the enemy you vanquish pops up again and again, forcing you to come up with new and more creative ways to kill them.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “The sooner we leave…”

  Katya dipped into her magic. It was still perilously low from earlier but had begun to recover. When she had juice enough to teleport, she loosed her spell. “I’ll ward us,” she said.

  “I will take care of that part. Be sure and jump in if my effort is lacking.”

  “I don’t know about jumping in, but I’ll tell you how to correct it.”

  “Even better. It is the only way I will learn.”

  Johan

  I battled to force my mixture of fire and air into submission fast. The trip to the surface would be over in seconds, and I had to be ready. In case something lurked on the headlands just waiting for one of us to make an appearance. So far, the serpents hadn’t made much of an effort to locate our lair, but it was only a matter of time before that changed.

  I could see their problem. Their serpent bodies were awkward and ungainly on land, and their human forms were vulnerable. They’d need strong magic to penetrate the wards around the underground grotto, which argued for their serpent forms, but it would be difficult for them to mount a realistic offense.

  What had happened to Surek? Was he still behind the scenes directing the action? Or had he ceded that task to a group of dragons? We’d done well with the ship—or we would have absent the Marburg/Ebola epidemic.

  How important was it to seek out and destroy whatever hybrid breeding enclaves remained? Would they wither without magic to fuel them? As usual, I had a whole lot of questions and very few answers. The headland took form around us. It was darker than when we’d been here earlier, so I guessed it must be nighttime. It never truly got dark this time of year at the extreme end of the southern hemisphere.

  I wrapped the netting of my ward more tightly around Katya and me. It was visible to my psychic vision, but not to my earth eyes. I couldn’t yet multitask with magic, so I was relieved when I felt Katya sprinkle seeking power in a wide arc. The smoke from earlier hadn’t totally cleared despite a brisk breeze. We’d dispatched a lot of serpents. I hadn’t counted, but I bet the number hovered north of forty.

  I was surprised by how justified I felt about those killings. I’d clearly thrown off the veneer of twenty-first century civility in favor of a far-more-primitive mentality. Early man had killed without a second thought back when it was a matter of survival.

  No one worried about mastodon rights when the fucker was bearing down on you because you’d wedged a spear in its side.

  Katya gripped my arm. I wanted to ask what she sensed, but I was stuck. Normal, out-loud talking would carry a long way—even if I whispered. Telepathy would be worse, at least the way I did it. I may have improved, but I had a long way to go before my mind speech was truly private.

  She crept farther from the ocean and then broke into a run toward a line of rocky crags perhaps a quarter kilometer distant. I followed her, doing my damnedest to keep us both warded. It was amazing how much harder it was to hold magic where I wanted it while my body was in motion.

  Ja. I needed a whole lot of practice. Opportunities weren’t exactly popping out all over. I ducked into the same slit in the rocks where Katya had vanished. I would have bet money she’d been here before. A rounded affair came into view, courtesy of the blue-white mage light bobbing next to Katya’s shoulder. I hadn’t been cold—drawing heat upward from the Earth’s core was one magic I’d mastered—but it was a relief to be out of the incessant gusts of unsettled weather.

  I was about to ask as innocuous a question as I could, but my darling mate anticipated me. “We wait. No talk. No questions.”

  Mmph. That pretty much cut the wind out from under my sails. I glanced around and summoned a light of my own to see better. Sure enough, petroglyphs lined the walls of this grotto. If human histories were to be believed, prehistoric man had never been to this pole, but the cave drawings proved those accounts wrong.

  The paint was faded, but I made out something that looked like a wooly mammoth. A whale was in another panel. And a rather ungainly craft that might have been a cross between a birchbark canoe and a rowboat. At least it explained how the artists had gotten here. I moved deeper into the cave and found exactly what I expected: piles of bones. Some were probably humanoid.

  Archaeology had always been a sideline interest of mine. I’d
run into plenty of sites not unlike this one in my metallurgical engineering career. Minerals and bones had one thing in common. Both were frequently found in the same spots, sunk into the earth.

  I’d let my warding disperse once we entered the cavern. Katya hadn’t rebuked me. I made my way back to where she crouched. She’d been drawing runes in the dirt floor with a sharp bit of rock.

  I knelt next to her and examined them, sensing she’d told me a story. It was smart of her to use runes. Much like Asian characters, a single rune took the place of many words. These looked Norse in origin, and my beast happily took over.

  Surprise lined his words. “She grew up with Bennet. He courted her. She refused his troth, but they remained friends.”

  “Why sound taken aback? You must have known.” I figured it was permissible to talk with my beast since the chatter was internal.

  “I did, but the courting element was so long ago, I’d forgotten about it.”

  I figured out the next part easily enough and took the rock from her to write, “Is Bennet coming?”

  She nodded and mouthed, “Very soon.”

  I scribed, “Why?” into the dirt. She shrugged.

  We’d find out soon enough. I rocked back on my heels, waiting. This felt a lot like when Erin and I had been trapped in a cave that turned out to be a gateway to Konstantin and Katya’s lair. Several lifetimes had passed since then. At least, it felt that way. In reality, probably not more than a month had elapsed.

  If that.

  My mind was busy. Who had located whom? Had Katya asked this Bennet fellow to come to us? Or had he thrown down a gauntlet? Should we be concerned about an attack? Would he come alone? Or with other dragon traitors.

  Katya patted my thigh and murmured, “He will not hurt us.”

  “How can you know that?” I scrapped writing in the dirt for whispering.